Lidia Rua
by Alcyone23
Summary: sillybella's July challenge. What passes through Marcus's head when he learns Edward loves a human?


_Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,  
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly__…_  
"_A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,  
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:  
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,  
As were his limbs of life, from that same night. _

Lamia, John Keats

* * *

_**Lidia Rua**_  
Alcyone23

* * *

The dress had been woven out of raw Egyptian silk, dyed a shade of green to rival that of a newborn leaf. It flows through the hands like water and with each ray of light, the green seems to vibrate transitioning from transparent to almost opaque. 

"Master Marcus?"

A bronze girdle wraps around the dress's slender waist. I had sent for numerous jewels to be embeded in it: pale golden onyxes from the Far East, rare yellow diamonds from the south and blood-red garnets to weave into a flower worthy of a queen.

"Master Aro requests your attendance in the throne room."

A blood-red ruby shaped like a teardrop falls from a delicate necklace of twisted gold. A matching bracelet rests against it.

"A Cullen has come to us for help."

A forehead band completes the outfit. A single ruby surrounded by tiny yellow diamonds hangs from a twisted band designed to encircle a slender forehead and loop behind small ears. The complete outfit can make even a vampire's fair skin appear warm.

"Master Marcus." Alec steps forward. I raise a hand to show I have heard. "Very well, then Master. I shall tell Master Aro that you are coming."

I barely register his departure. Holding the gown up to the light with the jewelry at their appropriate places, I can almost imagine a body filling it, soft and small and delicate. I draw the gown close to my face, but my lips touch nothing but a body of light, intangible and whispered, gone before I can be sure it had existed.

* * *

The boy trembles slightly before us, though not of fear. I can see when fear ties someone to us and this boy does not fear us. 

Instead, I fear him.

I know those eyes, black and flat, better than the ones I have now. I know the pain beyond pain residing in the dark depths even though the eyes do not reveal it.(and the eyes cannot even begin to convey it)

I know this boy. I know him far too well. Age him and allow his bronze hair to grow longer and darker. Let him keep those eyes for a few centuries. Let him learn to deal with the pain by killing every emotion he possesses one by one. That boy will become me.

I'm unsurprised to see it's not fear that ties him to us, but hope.

"What do you need Edward? What has happened?" Aro questions him, standing a few feet away. His guards stand around, unwilling to let their charge so near someone they know not.

The boy opens his mouth, closes it, tries again. "My—" he pauses, voice hoarse. "The—She…" He closes his eyes. A flicker of his anguish passes through his face, makes the agonized color burning around him all the brighter. "M-my mate is…dead."

Gasps erupt throughout the room from the more sentimental ones. The rest watch attentively.

In my hands, I play with the headband, gently running a finger across the smooth golden surface.

Aro remains perfectly composed, though his eyes contain a glint of emotion. Pity. "Who killed her, Edward? We will hunt them down with you if you haven't done so already." The last draws a grin onto Felix's face. Demetri appears excited at the prospect of tracking.

"No one did," he whispers, eyes downcast. His voice is threaded with the deepest shades of despair. "Sh-she killed herself." More gasps resound; this time, however, they are of bewilderment.

"How can this be?" Aro asks him, for the first time showing genuine surprise. He reaches out his hand expectantly. Edward understands and lays his palm on Aro's. Aro snatches his hand back almost immediately. "She was human?"

All around, shocked and indignant cries clamber to the ceiling.

The headband falls from my slack grip.

* * *

_I__ winced as one of the shards cut through my hand. Bright red bubbled up, outlining the slim yet deep cut. I reached for something to stop the blood flow. _

_A delicate hand held out a cloth. My disbelieving gaze took in a pale green gown, a plain brown girdle encircling the slender waist. Without the golden jewelry I would make, the skin appeared absolutely fair, not yet having donned the golden jewelry I would make to enhance the snowy texture._

_The hand pressed the cloth into my own. "Let me," said the sweetest voice I had ever heard.__  
_

* * *

The sound of the headband striking the floor is almost deafening in the shocked silence that followed the original outburst. The sound draws all attention to me for the slightest moment, but my attention is riveted on that boy so much like me. A boy who sinned by loving someone he shouldn't. A boy whose sin could only be cleansed by death. A boy who clamored for death for himself.

"Please." The boy now addresses me. "Please, I beg of you. Kill me."

He appeals to the one like him, the one who felt his pain. That boy would have granted him his wish because he knows the pain like a ragged wound that never heals. But that boy has long been dead. I killed him years ago.

"Please," he intones and, this time, anger lines the word like a blade. I raise my gaze and make eye contact, the first time I've done so in one thousand years.

_If I cannot gain what I wished for most, then why should you?_


End file.
